The year the wheels came off and I ran on the rims.
Poor execution with too much unexpected heat did a number on me.
So last year I was 3 weeks out of 12 weeks off to work on my heal getting healed. I fast walked/hiked about 80% of the course with running easy on the other 20%, to say I wasn’t going fast was an understatement. So to say I had high expectations for this race was an understatement. Then this year happened…
I always like getting out in front of the crowd and letting them slowly pick me off, because I slow down after the first 3 to 5 miles. Slowing down after the first 5 miles was laughable this time. Managing my nutrition and hydration didn’t exist until about mile 23. Speed never really existed since I went from fast to slow in the space of 5 miles. What a day… that I don’t want to repeat. Parts of the race I wouldn’t trade, but the majority of it will have to be done over sometime.
At the start I was itching to go and instantly ended up basically where I expect to be, kinda. What I expected was to be in the back of the lead pack, in between the leaders and the middle of the pack. What I got was being in the mist of the leaders, not behind them. This is the part I wouldn’t change for nothing. I had the pleasure of running with Burton, a submarine engineer, conversations with him got really deep. Then there was Lillie, the vet, who ended up killing out there. Then there was Jonathan, the chemical engineer and adjunct professor from Huntsville. He kept the 3 of us entertained for the roughly 13 miles that we were all together. It was during this time I wasn’t paying attention to my nutrition or
hydration, even with my watch telling me every 30 minutes to eat and drink. I didn’t figure out until somewhere around the 2nd aid station that these 3 were pacing off of me and using me for my knowledge of the trail. I was being used. I knew at some point I was going to get dropped. Somewhere around mile 13 or 14 it happened, I could no longer hang with the big dogs. Lillie and Jonathan were 25+ years younger than myself. When Jonathan heard that he began down the geek road of regression analysis, which brought out a ton of ribbing. Most of these miles had been spend with an 11 minute per mile pace, with many miles sub 11. Way too fast for me, I had no business being in the position I was at while with them, but it was SO MUCH fun hanging out them!! Just to give some perspective on how out of my league I was, Burton finished 3rd overall in 10.5 hours. Lillie was 1st female and 5th overall with a sub 11 hour finish. Jonathan was 9th overall with a sub 11.5 hour finish. Yea I was SO out of my league.
When I got to the 3rd aid station manned by Jason and Cumberland Transit I asked after Lillie and Jonathan, because I figured they were the ones I was going to be nearest. Burton was a strong runner, when he dropped me it was like dropping an extremely hot potato. So Lillie and Jonathan at that point where about a mile in front of me, not bad I thought. The next 5 miles really began to expand the distance between us. I began to count the runners as they began their journey north the start finish and found several surprises. Burton had moved up to 4th and was looking strong. Lillie was around 5th and doing really well. Tim, the principal, was 8th maybe. Tim will get his own little shout out. Jonathan was being tended to by his wife, the best crew ever; Burton, Lillie and Jonathan that comment will bring a smile to your faces. By my calculations I was in 12th ish and going to try to hold on there. Reality was about to crash my fantasy world big time.
So I had been chasing the Principal, kinda, I know better than to think I could out run him. I just wanted to keep him sight for as long as possible which lasted until somewhere between the 1st and 2nd aid stations. We passed him at the first aid station as he stopped and we didn’t, then he quickly caught up to us and chatted us up. He and I talked shop with school stuff for a bit and everyone was enjoying the ride. Then Tim decided it was time to get going again and was off. By the time we reached the second aid station he was long gone. I learned when I saw him heading north that he had gotten off course, not bad, get off course and still come in 8th overall not bad at all.
When I finally stop at the turn around, first stop during the race, I start to realize that I might not be in good shape. I’m a little light headed. So I get set up to head off again with Jon Cox and I swapping barbs about sitting too long and cramping up.
Jeremy, who gets to play with the really big kids at Bigs Backyard Ultra, helped me reload my vest. I think I sat for around 5 minutes, a long time to be at an aid station, sucking down a bunch of water and eating a few chips. I was finally off with a belly full of water that wasn’t quickly being absorbed, so I knew a bit of walking was in order. As I neared the highway, Alea, another Dirtbag doing her first 50 miler, passed heading the other direction. In the miles back to Jason I had some serious lower GI issues, which I hadn’t planned on because I don’t normally have those during a race. I should have remembered what caused it at SCAR, but honestly thought since I wasn’t ‘going that far’ it wouldn’t be a big deal. Koffee from Spring Energy is a cashew based coffee infused gel, it is thick and rich and I’ve discovered on long runs ends up effecting me in a normal way. I love these gels and need to stick to using them on shorter runs, shorter than 50 miles. When I make it back to Jason I’ve consumed most of all my water, which was a good thing as I hadn’t been and the temps felt like they were around 80. I sit down under their canopy and really felt light headed and woozy, I’m like wow where did this come from?? I mean I knew I hadn’t done what I needed to do in the first half, but come on, I’ve bounced back easily from times like this before. While I’m sitting Alea comes in with the group she’s been running with and moves out just before I do, I think I sat for another 5 minutes. This might have been around 10:30 am. I’m heading north. I’m 25+ miles in and I HAD been moving well, but this is where the wheels came off and I started running on the rims. If you’ve ever had a flat tire and drove your car on the rim you know how ruff that is and you understand how I was doing at the time. I’ve got 7 miles to get back to Brock and Jason reminds me as I’m leaving that I’ve been in this spot before and that I will pull through.
The next 7 miles where ruff to say the least. Somewhere between 11 and 11:30 I started peeing blood and that didn’t stop until just before I went to bed. Apparently this phenomenon is not unheard of in the running world, I just hadn’t experienced it. In this 7 mile section I’m doing by best to run, walk, eat and drink. I know I’m behind on nutrition and hydration and I was doing my best to get caught up, but every time I hit a grassy section the with sun full on me I lost all the ground I had gained while under canopy. I was wishing I had brought my poles, but this wasn’t supposed to be happening on this race, this was my come back race from taking 12 weeks a year ago, proving I can still do this thing well. On the journey back to Brock I get a ping from my watch with a low battery alert. I didn’t even think to check my battery level before the race, just one more thing. I make back to Brock and I inform him I’m not in a good place and he said he could tell. When I tell him I was peeing blood, he was like that’s not good. We took a few minutes and talked over the possible outcomes. He asks me one question ‘How are you going to feel tomorrow if you don’t finish today?’ I was going to be pissed. He was like ‘Well that settles it. Let’s get you patched up and on your way.’ My job was to reassess myself when I made to Mike at the next aid station 7 more miles away and to take one salt tab every 30 minutes. As I’m walking off another runner comes in and I hear Brock say ‘Man you look SO much better than that guy.’ I holler out ‘Thanks, Brock.’ And we had a good laugh and I was gone. I knew I was going to have to do some running to make one of two goals, one a goal to beat my time last year and the other to beat cut off. Not long after leaving Brock I get passed by the guy who came into the aid station after I left. About an hour later I look down at my watch wondering how long it had been since I left Brock, so I ate another Spring Energy SpeedNut and a salt tab and kept going. I knew Mike was at about mile 42 and it was going to take me a while. Somewhere during this time I realized my watch wasn’t giving me notifications anymore, no more lap pace nor eat/drink pings. During this section I was loosely thinking about turning around and which point was the no turn around point. When I hit mile 40 I had 10 miles to go and at that point I was determined to finish, the only way I wasn’t was if John pulled me as I went through the start/finish for the last 3 miles.
When I see Mike and we start chatting about what’s going on with my body, his response was ‘Oh that’s happening to everyone’ and proceeds to tell me of 2 friends to whom that had happened. After sucking down a bunch of watermelon and grabbing the last Speed Nuts off the table, since I was now out of those. I was off. I had noticed what felt like rain, temps had started dropping before I made it to Mike and I was glad of that. Somewhere in my journey north I had noticed some blotchy skin on my arm and thinking that’s not normal. Nothing about this was normal. When I left Mike I was determined, I wasn’t going to be fast and I might not beat my time from last year, but I was going to give getting done my best shot. I made it to the War of 1812 pull off and it said 2 miles to the start/finish. I made my calculations and pushed. If I wasn’t running, slowly, I was pulling out by fast power hike. I made it to the overlook which is about ½ mile from the start/finish. Now my watch decides to stop recording miles and switches back to just being a watch, I’m not sure how long ago it stopped recording my miles. Now I’m down to doing math to calculate how far I have to go and push myself to be a bit faster than that estimate. Everyone at the start/finish is trying to encourage whoever is coming in that they can move a bit faster. I wait until the catch their breath and holler back that it’s just me and I still have to do my loop and I’m not doing well. When John finally sees me and asks me how I’m doing, I tell him not good and that I need a safety runner for these last 3 miles as I didn’t want to fall on these creek crossings and not have some help. I walk to my car grab my waist light, walk back to John, and Taylor has agreed to join me. As we take off I tell her how grateful I am that she is coming with me and why; she is an awesome hill runner. I let her know that I wasn’t going to be doing much if any running because I just couldn’t. We kind of wandered around trying to find flags in the open field to mark to the course to the creek. I realized that I had yet to turn on my waist light, which as soon as I did solved all the flag finding issues. We crossed the creek 3 times, with the last one being the most worry some for me as it was the widest and slickest crossing. Crossing one at a time with me going first and slipping slightly we both made it across. Now for the finial big climb, every Hardwin Adventures race always makes you work for it in the end. We get up the last climb and I’m thinking I’ve got about a 1.5 miles to go and can I get under 13 hours? Will I beat last years’ time, in one sense it didn’t matter as I was going to finish, but on the other hand it did. As we rounded the last turn I’m telling Taylor how I wanted to beat last year but it was going to be close. She was like can you run just a little, so I tried, it didn’t last more than 5 minutes. I’ll take those 5 minutes as I finished in 12:55 hours.
I was now worried about the after math. Would I be able to get home? Friends tended to me at my collapse at the finish. As I sat, laid and shuffled I began to settle kind of like how dirt settles on the bottom I was settling on the bottom, stable but on the bottom. With everything from the race all packed up and just waiting on the sweeper I’m sitting in the car trying to gain the strength from the chocolate milk to drive home. When I finally get ready to go I had been talking with the speedster himself, Kevin, who set the course record for the marathon today. I asked him to follow me to Cool Spring and then after that I would call my wife and talk with her until I was home.
Now almost 24 hours later I’m starting to get my energy levels back. I’m so grateful for all my friends who were there in either running or volunteering for this race. I feel like if I attempt to make a list I’ll leave some out. So whether you were first, Kevin, or second to last that didn’t DNF, me, in your distance or you volunteered in some fashion.Thank you!! You all are what make Hardwin Adventures what it truly has become. Great events with an ever growing group of friends.
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